The Env-DATA System

The Environmental Data Automated Track Annotation System (Env-DATA) is a set of free tools on Movebank to help you link animal movement data with information from global environmental datasets, like weather models and satellite imagery. These datasets provide estimates for hundreds of environmental parameters—such as wind conditions, land use, vegetation, and snow cover—for the whole world, with many measurements available from the 1970s to the present. By making it easy to connect animal movement data with these datasets, we hope to make it easier for you to explore how animals' movements relate to their environment.

With the Env-DATA Track Annotation Service, users can add estimates of hundreds of environmental variables to animal tracking data by selecting tracks, browsing and selecting variables, and submitting a request. It is also possible to use Env-DATA to access environmental data related to but not the same as the animal tracks themselves by annotating gridded data for a geographic area or point location records over a chosen time period. You can browse available datasets here.

Movebank is coordinated by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior,
the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and the University of Konstanz.
For questions or feedback, contact us at support(at)movebank.org